What's
the Web For?
Look,
I don't claim to know, but my point is that no
one else really knows either. And the people who claimed
they did all through the late 90s bear as much blame
for the craziness that ensued (why would anyone, ever
kill Kozmo.com?)
as the people who didn't try to know, listened with
blind drooling greed in their hearts, and remained baffled,
like non-fans trying to understand Tolkien.
Ultimately,
the Internet and its graphical interface, the Web, will
attain real ubiquity, not like the phone or TV, but like
electricity. Until then, especially after the media and
Wall Street freakout of 1999-2001, people will keep pontificating,
apologizing, claiming, reclaiming and making really shrewd
points along the way.
I
feel strongly that "You Just Don't Understand E"
(and by "you," I do not mean you, but
generally everybody), so I get very caught up when I see
good signs of understanding or glaring moments of retrograde
dismissal (in which otherwise intelligent cultural critics
suddenly can sound like the last 5 years never happened).
Here
are a scant couple of links that I think emblematize the
disparate and wildly divergent viewpoints on what the
still-churning digital revolution means for our culture:
March
28, 2002, NYT
says the Web has "lost its luster."
Glenn Davis, erstwhile barker of online novelties says
"the Web is not a frontier anymore ... It is simply
a place." As if this is not extraordinary.
April
1, 2002, Salon's
Scott Rosenberg enlists reality in the cause:
"[A]s though the presence on the Web of every major
newspaper, magazine, radio and TV show; every major
government agency, most legislative bodies and court
systems; nearly every significant retailer and manufacturer;
and every think tank, research center and institution
of higher learning were insufficiently 'compelling content'.
..."
September
26, 2002, NYT
examines the Lower Manhattan dialogues we held
as an example of reasoned, even productive, civic discourse:
"Rapport often developed instantly in their virtual
communication, seemingly from the sense of safety people
feel as they type into the ether. … More than half
of the participants in online and offline groups said
that their opinions had shifted over the course of the
discussions."
October
13, 2002, Boston
Globe declares online discussion bootless:
"[A]s we now know, the masses generally don't want
to deliberate or hold anyone accountable online, least
of all themselves."
Confounded
with contradiction? Who wouldn't be? Ready to invest?
Who is? Who isn't?
In
December, Stewart
Alsop, who's been doing this a long time
and is now in the VC world, wrote in Fortune,
"One of my editors asked me why Silicon Valley
wasn't producing major startups anymore — companies
like Hewlett-Packard, Intel Corp., and Apple Computer.
Sometimes I wonder what those numbnuts at the home office
do while they work. As soon as I heard the question,
I thought of three companies: Yahoo, BEA Systems, and
eBay." I know hardly anything about the venture
capital world, or current climate, but his Don't
you people get it? message sounded pretty familiar.
Two
of my favorite articles about what the Web is and ought
to be are these insights on the rocky romance between
media
companies and online community, by J.C. Herz
in The
Standard, and this 2000 introduction
to the idea of Open Media, on /.
by Jon Katz.
I've
corresponded with Doc
Searls a couple of times and he used the phrase
"wide-open journalism" today. I like this a
lot more than "Open Media," because I think
"media" can't be disentangled from the sense
of establishment we usually bring to the term, and the
consumer's expectation of information that's been synthesized,
not simply aggregated. (As if aggregation isn't an editorial
act anyway. And as if all the people who want and need
to understand the world better have the time or tools
to synthesize a raw feed on their own. Anyway, you see
the dilemmas that quickly arise.)
I
also like "wide-open" because I think it connotes
temporality. Things that are wide open don't usually remain
so. What's particular about this moment in our culture
and in our culture of cultural commentary is its openness
to interpretation, dispute and the emergence and retreat
of Trusted Voices. (This is the volatile truth beneath
the apparent juggernaut of post-9/11 consensus-by-default.)
"Wide
open" also shows up a lot as a sports metaphor,
and I don't want to idly put the term in Doc's mouth.
It's me singling it out and holding it up. Doc has spent
a lot more time surveying the battleground
of metaphor than I have. :] He kinda belongs up there
with Chomsky and Cassandra on that front. :] So please
don't go and assume I'm quoting any well-considered
coinage from him. I've commandeered the term. :]
But
there is some truth in the dual idea that 1) the Internet
enables us to aggregate single perspectives into a collaborative
narrative that, though perhaps unwieldy, is greater than
the sum of its parts, hence "wide-open journalism";
and 2) the field of authoritative journalistic voices
on what the net is and where it's heading is wide open.
My
last apologia here is that, ironically, there's no collaborative discussion space available. You
can leave a comment on my
Live Journal page if you're so inclined.
Or email
me and if more than a couple of comments
come in I'll use the stone-knives-and-bearskins
approach and append them here.
Thanks
for listening.
JM,
1/6/03
